TB 115 :
i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in
all the folders

is possible ?

possibly , not all, but from a date, example:

all unique mail addresses from 1-1-2001

On 12/13/23 08:06 AM, this is what nn wrote:
> TB 115 :
> i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in all the folders
>
> is possible ?
>
> possibly , not all, but from a date, example:
>
> all unique mail addresses from 1-1-2001
Windows or Linux?
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 13 Dec 2023 14:06, nn wrote:
> TB 115 :
> i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in
> all the folders
>
> is possible ?

grep "^From: " mailbox | sort -u > all-froms.txt

--
Viele Grüße, Jörg
Sent with Betterbird. Simply better. www.betterbird.eu
Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich: Kaum macht man's richtig, schon
funktioniert's!

On 13/12/2023 14:20, Big Al wrote:
> On 12/13/23 08:06 AM, this is what nn wrote:
>> TB 115 :
>> i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in
>> all the folders
>>
>> is possible ?
>>
>> possibly , not all, but from a date, example:
>>
>> all unique mail addresses from 1-1-2001
> Windows or Linux?

windows

On 13 Dec 2023 14:06:00 +0100 nn wrote:
>TB 115 :
>i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in
>all the folders
>
>is possible ?
>
>possibly , not all, but from a date, example:
>
>all unique mail addresses from 1-1-2001

_All_ email addresses? Including CCs? In email bodies too?
--
(Remove numerics from email address)

On 13/12/2023 14:54, Dave Royal wrote:
> On 13 Dec 2023 14:06:00 +0100 nn wrote:
>> TB 115 :
>> i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in
>> all the folders
>>
>> is possible ?
>>
>> possibly , not all, but from a date, example:
>>
>> all unique mail addresses from 1-1-2001
>
> _All_ email addresses? Including CCs? In email bodies too?

no, only the sender

sorry for my english: only the sender of ALL e-mail that are saved in
my TB folders

On 13 Dec 2023 15:01:35 +0100 nn wrote:
>On 13/12/2023 14:54, Dave Royal wrote:
>> On 13 Dec 2023 14:06:00 +0100 nn wrote:
>>> TB 115 :
>>> i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in
>>> all the folders
>>>
>>> is possible ?
>>>
>>> possibly , not all, but from a date, example:
>>>
>>> all unique mail addresses from 1-1-2001
>>
>> _All_ email addresses? Including CCs? In email bodies too?
>
>
>no, only the sender
>
>sorry for my english: only the sender of ALL e-mail that are saved in
>my TB folders

Pity. That's too easy ;)
--
(Remove numerics from email address)

On 12/13/23 08:46 AM, this is what nn wrote:
> On 13/12/2023 14:20, Big Al wrote:
>> On 12/13/23 08:06 AM, this is what nn wrote:
>>> TB 115 :
>>> i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in all the folders
>>>
>>> is possible ?
>>>
>>> possibly , not all, but from a date, example:
>>>
>>> all unique mail addresses from 1-1-2001
>> Windows or Linux?
>
> windows
One problem, I think, is that I don't see much data in my folders as I have IMAP, meaning the data is on the server.
If you are POP then you're probably good to go.
Of course anything you move to Local Folders has a header.

I looked at my Trash folder in the imap folder and was able to use:
grep "^From: " Trash | sort -u > email.txt
and find a nice little list (only 4). Of course this is Linux and I can run that command.

Even still the output is in this form, one per line:
From: AOL <no-reply@cc.aol.com>
and not sure what you'd do with 100's/1000's of emails after you got this list.
You'd have to parse all folders that would have mail to make a complete list.

Last hurdle is how do you do that in Windows.

But yes, it is doable. But do you have time?
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 12/13/23 08:15, Big Al wrote:
> One problem, I think, is that I don't see much data in my folders as I
> have IMAP, meaning the data is on the server.

I'd suggest configuring the folder to "Select $THIS folder for offline
use" in the "Synchronization" tab of the "Folder Properties" and then
"Downlaod Now" thereon. That should cause Thunderbird to download the
full message in addition to headers to a local file on your system.

What that file is will depend on if you are using "File per folder
(mbox)" or maildir as the "Message Store Type" for the account's "Server
Settings" (set at account configuration time).

> I looked at my Trash folder in the imap folder and was able to use:
>     grep "^From: " Trash | sort -u > email.txt
> and find a nice little list (only 4).   Of course this is Linux and I
> can run that command.

grep, et al. will likely get most of the desired information. But it
probably won't get the full logical From: line if the From: header has
been split over multiple physical lines. E.g.:

From: "test one two three"
<test123@example.net>

I use the `formail` command on *nix systems to extract the full header
from messages:

formail -zcX From: < /path/to/test.eml

`formail` can do a lot of things:

-z cleans up white space between the header name and body
-c concatenates continued (unwraps / unfolds) logical lines into one
physical line of output
-X extracts the header contents and the header name
-x extracts the header contents

-X vs -x depends on what you're doing with the data you extract.

> Even still the output is in this form, one per line:
>     From: AOL <no-reply@cc.aol.com>
> and not sure what you'd do with 100's/1000's of emails after you got
> this list.

This is where standard *nix text manipulation comes into play.

It depends if the OP wants just the email addresses or if they care
about the human friendly name too.

From: "Human friendly name" <email@example.com>

Then there are the few lines that don't have the human friendly name or
< / > enclosing.

From: spammer@example.org

The (lack of) " / < / > are optional and not a good indicator of anything.

- " should be used to enclose the human friendly name if it contains a
space or some special characters. (No I don't know what special is
defined as without looking at an RFC.)
- < / > are used together and should be used when there is a human
friendly name, but are optional otherwise.

There are some other special things that I rarely run into. But you
should be aware of them when parsing raw email (RFC 5322) headers:

From: user@example.net (John Doe)

The (...) is an older but still perfectly valid way that human friendly
names can be represented.

N.B. "grep" will likely get lines in the body of a message which you may
not want. Conversely formail defaults to only extracting the requested
header(s).

formail also has ways to deal with mbox files which contain multiple
messages.

You should probably also be aware that mbox has two From lines:

From user@example.net
...
From: "John Doe" user@example.net (John Doe)

Let's tickle the common client bug of which human friendly name
should be used. }:-)

> You'd have to parse all folders that would have mail to make a complete
> list.

I think the OP said for a particular folder which simplifies the task
somewhat.

If the OP does what multiple folders, the same set of tasks would be run
against the desired folders.

> Last hurdle is how do you do that in Windows.

IMHO Windows did not have a good set of tools for doing this at the
command line like *nix does.

That being said, hopefully the WSL would help with this.

Optionally, copy the mbox file to a *nix system to do it.

I'm sure that something could be written in a language that's on Windows
to do this. But I digress.

> But yes, it is doable.  But do you have time?

Maildir and mbox on *nix make this conducive to tools that probably
already exist or are easy / fast to install.

--
Grant. . . .

On 13/12/2023 15:07, Dave Royal wrote:
> On 13 Dec 2023 15:01:35 +0100 nn wrote:
>> On 13/12/2023 14:54, Dave Royal wrote:
>>> On 13 Dec 2023 14:06:00 +0100 nn wrote:
>>>> TB 115 :
>>>> i need to collect all (unique) email addresses from all the e-mail in
>>>> all the folders
>>>>
>>>> is possible ?
>>>>
>>>> possibly , not all, but from a date, example:
>>>>
>>>> all unique mail addresses from 1-1-2001
>>>
>>> _All_ email addresses? Including CCs? In email bodies too?
>>
>>
>> no, only the sender
>>
>> sorry for my english: only the sender of ALL e-mail that are saved in
>> my TB folders
>
> Pity. That's too easy ;)

it's too difficult for me :)

thanks to all!

i'had hoped in an internal function of thunderbird

for example I use:

- "search message" function to filter all the message between a dates

- then I order the list by sender

- and then .....I read the unique senders ad copy it one by one....

this last step is not ok :)

On 13 Dec 2023 16:29:11 +0100 nn wrote:

>i'had hoped in an internal function of thunderbird

TB collects sender addresses in a 'Collected addresses' address book. I
think it's an option. Do you have that enabled? If so you could export
that to CSV and process it in a spreadsheet.

If it's not enabled I wonder whether you can feed all the old mail in
again and get TB to collect the addresses? I can't imagine how you might
do that without setting up a mailserver though.

I'd go with Jörg's solution. Cut a Knoppix live CD if necessary. Sort out
the odd address formats nanually.
--
(Remove numerics from email address)

thanks

> TB collects sender addresses in a 'Collected addresses' address book. I
> think it's an option. Do you have that enabled? If so you could export
> that to CSV and process it in a spreadsheet.

no, it's no enable ( i don't want TB collected the addresses of incoming
mail for security reason: when I write an e-mail TB autocomplete the
collected addreses and if i not carefull I can choose wrong address )

>
> If it's not enabled I wonder whether you can feed all the old mail in
> again and get TB to collect the addresses? I can't imagine how you might
> do that without setting up a mailserver though.

i read the mail in pop3 and delete it from server :)

but if I use "search message" i can export all the messages in a folder....

>
> I'd go with Jörg's solution. Cut a Knoppix live CD if necessary. Sort out
> the odd address formats nanually.

ok, thanks for everything for now

I'll elaborate...

On 12/13/2023 11:00 AM, Dave Royal wrote:
> On 13 Dec 2023 16:29:11 +0100 nn wrote:
>
>> i'had hoped in an internal function of thunderbird
>
> TB collects sender addresses in a 'Collected addresses' address book. I
> think it's an option. Do you have that enabled? If so you could export
> that to CSV and process it in a spreadsheet.
>
> If it's not enabled I wonder whether you can feed all the old mail in
> again and get TB to collect the addresses? I can't imagine how you might
> do that without setting up a mailserver though.
>
> I'd go with Jörg's solution. Cut a Knoppix live CD if necessary. Sort out
> the odd address formats nanually.
>

You can have a grep on Windows if you want one.

Windows has native "findstr" as their grep, but
it's not quite the same.

findstr /? # In Command Prompt, the argument on the end gives "help"
# If in Powershell, type "cmd" to switch to Command Prompt shell...

Windows 10 and Windows 11 have Bash shell, which would
have a grep as well. The line endings in that environment
would be Linux line endings (this occasionally makes a
difference when working from Bash). Whereas the following
ports use Windows line endings.

Getting Bash in Windows installed properly,
will cause hair loss (mine was broken the other day, and
I couldn't actually fix it!).

*******

Gnuwin32 project, has GNU utilities ported to Windows.
It does not receive regular updates, but that is mainly
because it does not need them.

There are challenges for a Windows user, but all the
materials are there. If you use the Setup one, you
might have to alter %path% via the sysdm.cpl : Advanced : Environment Variable button
.. Scrolling down in there, will show how all the trashy
programs have added themselves to the %path% for the System.

https://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html

These packages haven't been touched in ten years or so,
but they're still handy for adding capability to a system.
I use the gawk.exe from there, for scripting.

This is my "GREP kit", with the DLLs for the executables
in the same folder. I would use Command Prompt, CD to the
GREP directory, and use them there. That's just to show
the dyndlls they use -- the program will tell you which
DLL it cannot find, if the component bits cannot be located.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/25sf9K3N/grep-kit.gif

*******

Thunderbird has File : Offline : Offline Settings and
maybe using that will cause the IMAP folders to be copied
into the local store ?

I only use Offline for USENET, so I don't know how it works
for Email usage. It is easier to get Thunderbird to scrape
stuff if the info is local. Or then, you can resort to grep :-)

Paul